Travels: Granite City

We’re spending much of the week in Granite City Illinois, a beat Midwestern town across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Jenny’s mother lives here, in the town where she was born and raised.

Ruth drove us from the St. Louis airport into town, but before we could swing by her new house, she insisted we get some breakfast at “The Apple Tree Restaurant.” This cozy joint is situated inside a strip mall about twenty yards from the railroad tracks that run parallel to the main drag through town.

The Apple Tree is an old-school American food restaurant. We got these wonderful ‘advertisement placemats,’ and all the plates and cups were of heavy white porcelain. The jelly came in tiny boxes with foil lids that peeled open, and the waitress poured our coffer at the table from a translucent coffee point stained the color of rust.

I got a dish called a “skillet.” Essentially it was ham cubes, onion slices, chunks of green pepper, gooey American cheese, eggs, and stringy hashbrowns all slathered together with grease in a wide low bowl. I also got four triangles of buttery toast, white bread. Tallulah got eggs and hash browns, and the waitress brought out a brand of ketchup I’d never heard of: Red Gold. I tried it. Disgusting, namely because it tasted just like tomatoes.

I scarfed down my skillet and didn’t say a word to anyone at the table. I had the feeling that all of the grease in the dish slicked up my throat, and so the food just toppled down easily. We sat and talked about sports and family, and I sipped on my sugary lemonade and felt the giant slab of warmth in my stomach churning and gurgling.

After breakfast, we struck out for Ruth’s newly purchased house, a quaint two bedroom in a quiet neighborhood. Neighbors were out raking their leaves and picking up fallen branches.

We drove by this one house where about a half dozen young guys were lounging in the front yard around some Christmas decorations – an inflated Frosty, an inflated Santa in a sled, a white Christmas tree. None of it looked in place on the dead yellow grass. Half of the boys had stripped down to their jeans. No shirts. Forty degrees, and they were bare-chested. They were all smoking cigarettes, and a few of them were drinking from brown paper sacks. One kid was trying to do tricks on his skateboards, essentially riding two of them at once and leaping off the curb. When he spilled, his splayed his long bare arms wildly in the afternoon light, and the whole gang behind seemed to lurch with laughter.